Democrats block bill to ensure medical care for abortion survivors

Senate Democrats on Monday defeated a GOP attempt to advance legislation that would clarify that babies who survive attempted abortions must receive medical care.

Republicans and anti-abortion advocates pushed for the bill, the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act, to receive a vote so that they could put individual senators on the spot regarding the issue of third-trimester abortion. GOP senators have been aiming to pressure Democrats to state whether they believe any limits should be placed on abortion after controversial comments appearing to indicate otherwise from Democratic Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam.

The legislation fell short of the 60 votes it needed to advance in a procedural maneuver, 53 to 44. Democrats Bob Casey of Pennsylvania, Joe Manchin of West Virginia, and Doug Jones of Alabama joined all Republicans present in voting in favor.

“I don’t always follow the Democrats,” Jones told the Washington Examiner of his decision to support the bill. “Having studied the bill I think it’s the right vote.”

Republicans and Democrats largely talked past each other about the bill’s purpose during floor debate ahead of the vote. Sen. Ben Sasse, R-Neb., who introduced the bill, said it would stop doctors from letting a baby die who survived a botched abortion. Democrats countered that the bill would limit what doctors could do after the birth of a baby who had a grave medical condition, and as a result either wouldn’t live past birth or wouldn’t survive long.

President Trump weighed in on the bill’s defeat several hours later, calling it “one of the most shocking votes in the history of Congress.”

“Senate Democrats just voted against legislation to prevent the killing of newborn infant children,” the president tweeted Monday night. “The Democrat position on abortion is now so extreme that they don’t mind executing babies AFTER birth. This will be remembered as one of the most shocking votes in the history of Congress. If there is one thing we should all agree on, it’s protecting the lives of innocent babies.”

[Opinion: Virginia’s governor just endorsed late-late-term abortion, and journalists are not on it]

During his floor speech ahead of the vote, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said the bill would “target, intimidate and shut down reproductive doctors across this country” and “impose requirements on what types of care doctors must provide.”

“It has always been illegal to harm a newborn infant,” he said. “This bill has nothing to do with that.” He called the legislation “Washington politics at its worst.”

Sasse countered that the bill would keep doctors from “actively allowing a baby to die” who had survived an abortion.

“What this bill does is try to secure basic rights, equal rights, for babies that are born and survive outside the womb,” he said.

A group of House Republicans, led by House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy of California, walked on the Senate floor to support the vote.

Earlier this month, Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., rejected a motion to pass the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act via unanimous consent, a procedure which a sole senator can stop. Murray objected because, she said, the bill was unnecessary as the U.S. already has laws against infanticide.

Northam and Virginia Del. Kathy Tran, also a Democrat, said several weeks ago that they supported a state bill that appeared to allow abortion at the time of birth. Tran later said she misspoke about when abortion would be permitted and Northam’s office later released a statement saying that the governor’s comments were mischaracterized and had been intended to address cases in which babies wouldn’t survive birth because of deformity or another health issue.

Sasse pounced on the comments during the floor debate Monday, saying that Northam’s comments amounted to a “discussion about whether you throw that little baby in the trash can.”

Virginia tabled the abortion bill, but other states, including Illinois and Massachusetts, are considering loosening restrictions on third-trimester abortion. Supporters of looser restrictions say they are meant to address circumstances in which fetuses have severe medical conditions that would cause them not to survive birth, or that would result in short, painful lives.

The bill that failed Monday would have built on the 2002 Born-Alive Infants Protection Act, which clarified that “every infant member of the species homo sapiens who is born alive at any stage of development” is a “person” for all federal law purposes. That law was intended to clarify that babies were supposed to receive protections if they survived an abortion, and Sasse’s bill further clarifies what level of care they are supposed to receive, including being immediately transferred to a hospital.

If that protocol isn’t followed, then the doctor performing the abortion would face criminal prosecution. Republicans have noted the case of Dr. Kermit Gosnell, an abortion provider who was convicted of killing babies after attempted abortions, as evidence that their bill is necessary. Democrats and abortion rights groups counter that the doctor was prosecuted and convicted, showing that the legal mechanism are already adequate.

Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., pointed to the 2002 bill when explaining his decision to vote against Monday’s measure, and saying that the previous legislation already clarifies that infanticide is illegal. Kaine, who has said he is personally troubled by abortion but votes to uphold abortion rights, said he didn’t receive any statistics from Republicans about why the bill was necessary and he said he would have wanted to see the bill go through committee first.

“When you have hearings on bills you get the facts out and you explore whether it’s needed,” Kaine said. “They didn’t even want to bring it to committee and that tells me I don’t think they had a real case to justify the bill.”